I represent the first generation who, when we were born, the television was now a permanent fixture in our homes. When I was born people had breakfast with Barbara Walters, dinner with Walter Cronkite, and slept with Johnny Carson.
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Monday, January 30, 2017

This Week in Television History: January 2017 PART V

As always, the further we go back in Hollywood history,the more that fact and legend become intertwined.It's hard to say where the truth really lies.

At first, the Hardy Boys Mysteries and Nancy
Drew Mysteries — which were based on the young adult novels written
under the pseudonyms Franklin W. Dixon and Carolyn Keene, respectively —
alternated on ABC’s Sunday night schedule. By the second season, Martin’s Nancy
Drew was incorporated into the Hardy Boys’ mysteries, a move that prompted the
actress to leave the show before the season’s end. She was replaced by Janet
Louise Johnson.

The show’s title was shortened to The Hardy
Boys Mysteries for its third and final season.

February 1, 1887

Official
registration of Hollywood. On this
day in 1887, Harvey Wilcox officially registers Hollywood with the Los Angeles
County recorder’s office.

Wilcox and his wife, Daeida, had moved to Southern California four years earlier from Topeka, Kansas, where Harvey had made his fortune in real estate.
They bought 160 acres of land in the Cahuenga Valley, located in the foothills
to the west of the city of Los Angeles. A once-sleepy settlement founded in
1781 as El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles de Poricuncula, Los
Angeles was by then expanding rapidly thanks to the completion of the Southern
Pacific Railroad in 1876 (the Santa Fe Railroad would arrive in 1885).

Wilcox, who had lost the use of his legs as a child
due to polio, envisioned the land as the perfect site for a utopian-like
community for devout Christians, where they could live a highly moral life free
of vices such as alcohol (Wilcox was a prohibitionist). Daeida Wilcox called
the new community “Hollywood,” borrowing the name from a Chicago friend who told her that was the name of a summer
home she had in the Midwest. Harvey laid out a street map of the settlement,
centered on a main street he called Prospect Avenue (it was later renamed
Hollywood Boulevard). After filing the map with the L.A. County recorder’s
office, Wilcox set about laying out Hollywood’s streets, made of dirt and lined
with pepper trees.

As Harvey sold lots, Daeida worked to raise money to
build churches, a school and a library. By 1900, nine years after Harvey
Wilcox’s death, Hollywood had a population of 500, compared with 100,000 people
in Los Angeles at the time. It was connected to L.A. by a single-track
streetcar running down Prospect Avenue; it took two hours to make the
seven-mile trip, and service was infrequent. In 1910, the community of Hollywood
voted to consolidate with Los Angeles due to an inadequate supply of water.
Shortly thereafter, the fledgling motion-picture industry began growing
exponentially, as moviemakers found their ideal setting in the mild, sunny
climate and varied terrain of Southern California. As the years went by, Harvey
Wilcox’s dreams of a sober, conservative religious community faded even further
into the background, as Hollywood became known throughout the world as the
gilded center of an industry built on fantasy, fame and glamour.

In 1994, he was shot in an apparent robbery attempt but went on to make a
full recovery. In a radio interview, he mentioned that the robber who shot him
was eventually incarcerated, and in prison some fans of Morris's who happened
to be inmates there teamed up and beat up the robber in revenge.

Morris starred on Martin
as Martin's first boss Stan. Morris's shooting had caused him to be unable to
continue in the role, and he was written out of the show by having the
character become a national fugitive. The scene
where he is about to undergo plastic surgery was shot on the hospital
bed Morris occupied while recuperating from the 1994 assault.

February 1, 1982

Late Night with David Letterman debuted.

After his morning show on NBC got cancelled in
October 1980 after only 18 weeks on the air, David Letterman was still held in
sufficient regard by the network brass (especially NBC president Fred
Silverman) that upon hearing the 33-year-old comedian is being courted by a
syndication company, NBC gave him a $20,000 per week deal to sit out a year and
guest-host a few times on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show.

February 5, 1967

The Smothers Brothers Comedy
Hour first aired.

The comedy
and variety show hosted by the Smothers Brothers aired on CBS
from 1967 to 1969. The show started out as only a slightly "hip"
version of the typical comedy-variety show of its era, but rapidly evolved into
a show that extended the boundaries of what was considered permissible in
television satire. While the Smothers themselves were at the forefront of these
efforts, credit also goes to the roster of writers and regular performers they
brought to the show, including Jim Stafford (who served as their head
writer and producer), Steve Martin, Don Novello ("Father Guido
Sarducci"), Rob Reiner
("Mike Stivic"), Presidential candidate Pat Paulsen, Bob Einstein ("Super Dave Osborne",
"Marty Funkhouser",
and "Officer Judy"), Einstein's brother, Albert (who works
professionally as Albert Brooks),
and resident hippieLeigh French ("Share a Little Tea with
Goldie"). The show also introduced audiences to pop singer Jennifer Warnes (originally billed as
Jennifer Warren or simply Jennifer), who was a regular on the series. The
television premiere of Mason Williams'
hit record, Classical Gas,
took place on the show.

CHILD OF TELEVISION @ iTunes

Pre-ramble

I represent the first generation whom, when we were born, the television was now a permanent fixture in our homes. When I was born people had breakfast with Barbara Walters, dinner with Walter Cronkite, and slept with Johnny Carson.
Read the full "Pre-ramble"